


So Long

by chiiyo86



Category: Savages (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Captivity, F/M, Kidnapping, M/M, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-27
Updated: 2012-11-27
Packaged: 2017-11-19 16:29:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/575291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiiyo86/pseuds/chiiyo86
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laguna Beach, California. Ben and Chon are living the dream, growing some of the best weed in the world, with their shared girlfriend, Ophelia (aka O). Their world is shattered when they draw the attention of the Mexican Baja drug cartel and its queen, Elena Sanchez. When they refuse to partner with the cartel, O is kidnapped as leverage and kept hostage for one year - one year to learn and change, one year to test their feelings for each other. AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Long

**Author's Note:**

> Written for polybigbang. Thanks to geckoholic for her precious help in making this story flow better, to Teyke for the last minute SPAG check, and to my artist, tiggeratl1 for her art (you should absolutely go check her post).  
> I want to underline the fact that I'm only familiar with the movie adaptation by Oliver Stone, and not with the novels by Don Winslow, so it's on the movie that I based my characterization. I did my best, with geckoholic's help, to make it so this story is understandable to anyone unfamiliar with the canon.

“Now stick it into that vulgar mouth of yours.”

It’s really happening – somehow Chon can’t quite make himself believe it. Fucking Mexican cartel took O, took their girl, and now Ben and him are at the mercy of the deformed voice coming from their computer. Chon’s breathing comes out fast and shallow around the gun in his mouth.

“Now put your finger on the trigger.”

His ears roar with a noise like the waves crashing against the shore and the sound of Ben’s panicked voice, “No, there’s got to be a better way, got to be a better way!”

Chon thinks about O’s look of confusion on the video they were shown – is she drugged, did they hit her? –, about her disheveled blond hair, her cries.

Ben’s screams are a continuous background soundtrack. _Don’t do it, don’t do it._

Chon thinks about pressing the trigger and dying – about _him_ pressing the trigger and _him_ dying, not something he’d ever thought would be in the order of things. The voice is going to ask him to kill himself, and he’ll do it if it means they won’t hurt O, but it doesn’t sit well with him. Death is an old friend, but _this_ should not be happening. He thinks about leaving Ben and O alone dealing with this mess.

“Stop. You may take it out.”

 _Not today, then_ , is Chon’s first thought, tinged with a bone-deep relief. He feels out of breath like he’s run a marathon. After the call ends, Ben is clingy like a baby koala, with his hands roaming all over Chon’s arms and shoulders, then warm against the nape of his neck.

“Are you okay?” Ben asks.

Chon’s not okay, but he figures it’s not worth pointing out.

“I’m telling you right now, O isn’t gonna die,” he says.

And that’s all that matters.

\---

Everything’s gone to hell a lot faster than Ben ever thought it could. They’re just marijuana growers, small players in the game of drug dealing; they didn’t ask for this. Every time he thinks about O scared and alone in the hands of those people, his stomach churns and he wants to be sick.

Chon and him spend a lot of time screaming at each other.

“All we’ll do is to put O’s life at risk!” Ben exclaims.

“C’mon, O’s life is _already_ at risk and it’s on our heads! We–”

“That’s precisely why we need to–”

“Why we need to take _action!_ ”

Chon closes his fists and his whole body tenses, like _taking action_ means starting a fight with Ben right now.

“Action? What kind of action?” Ben throws his hands up in frustration. “Wanna go all guns blazing against the whole fucking cartel?”

“Well, that’s a thought–”

“God, stop being such a fucking _Marine_ for a second!”

They’re standing on their balcony, the infinity of the sky and the sea like a blue bubble around them. The wind gets all of Ben’s hair in his eyes, and all he can see is Chon in front of him, unmovable as a brick wall, looking accusing.

“Do you want O to come back?” Chon says, his voice low and dangerous. “Do you even care?”

Ben’s heart freezes in his chest. He can’t breathe, and for a moment, can’t talk.

“Fuck you,” he says, very softly.

Chon storms out. Ben stays, sits heavily in a chair and shivers for a long while, watching the few flimsy-looking clouds in the sky. When Chon comes back, hours later, Ben hasn’t moved at all.

“I’m sorry,” Chon says.

“Are you?” Ben says tiredly. “You never say anything you don’t mean.”

Chon sits on the arm of the chair next to Ben’s.

“We can’t just wait for the resolution we want. Can you stand to think about O as their prisoner for _one year_? I know I can’t.”

“Violence can only engender violence. We won’t help O by going all kamikaze on their ass.”

“That’s bullshit. Violence _is_ , that’s all,” Chon says, but there doesn’t seem to be much heat left in him. They’re just rehashing an argument they’ve had since the day they met.

“You can’t always expect the best of people,” Chon adds after a beat. “That’s not gonna get you anywhere good.”

“And _you_ always expect the worst, don’t you?”

Chon’s lips form the hint of a smile.

“That’s what makes us such a good team.”

Ben snorts and stands to make himself a joint, to soothe his frayed nerves. He lights it up, and after a puff holds it out for Chon.

Chon shakes his head. “No, I need a clear mind. Can’t let myself grow complacent again.”

The look on Chon’s face, like Chon’s at war and getting ready for death and violence, is making Ben feel very afraid.

\---

This is a place where time stopped. 

If O had ever imagined getting kidnapped before, she would have thought that the fear would be the most prevalent thing. And it is there, a slow throb at the back of her mind, but what is really getting to O is the boredom. 

Sitting on a couch, watching mind-numbing TV that doesn’t really register, O counts the minutes. It helps to picture the scene a little differently – sitting on the couch, watching TV, but curled up between Ben and Chon, leaning against Ben’s chest with her feet on Chon’s lap, or maybe the other way around. Ben’s arms are always welcoming, but she can only touch Chon at very specific moments, and it’s a guessing game, one she’s good at, to be able to tell when the time is just right. 

She misses them. It’s ridiculous because they’ve been apart longer than this before, but the possibility that they might never see each other again makes the separation cut deeper.

The couch moves and O dares a glance to the side, where the two other people have been sitting still, seemingly ignoring her as she’s tried to ignore them. Her jailers are a boy and a girl of about her age, or maybe younger. She tries to guess at their relationship – are they friends, lovers? Brother and sister? Or maybe they didn’t know each other until they were both appointed to her watch.

The boy now looks at her with an air of undisguised curiosity, mingled with some embarrassment. 

“What?” O asks, none too friendly. 

The boy looks cute and innocent with his mane of curly hair, but what the hell, she’s a kidnapping victim. Her tone doesn’t seem to deter him, though.

“I was wondering…” he trails off.

“Esteban!” the girl on his other side snaps.

Esteban rolls his eyes at her and hisses something back in quick Spanish. Then he turns again to O, looking more determined.

“Which one of the two guys is your boyfriend?”

“They both are,” O answers. The same answer to the same question, again and again, probably – at least she hopes – for the rest of her life.

At the other end of the couch, the girl sends her a hard look. Esteban seems confused, eyebrows knitting together. O shrugs and looks away; she doesn’t care even one bit and she never has. She doesn’t care if people think she’s a slut, or that the boys are whipped, lesser men for agreeing to share. 

Esteban has another question in him, O can feel it, so she looks at him straight in the eye and waits for it.

“Uh,” he says, “and they don’t mind?”

The truth is, being with Ben and Chon feels so natural that it has to be a sin. If one of them ever felt slighted or jealous, O has never heard of it. 

“No,” she says, and looks back to the TV. “They don’t.”

\---

The night is cool and comforting, the darkness a perfect reflection of Chon’s soul at the moment. Lights out, everything is asleep. As long as O is gone, Chon needs to shut down every part of him that won’t help in getting her back. Ben doesn’t get this, he can’t, doesn’t know how to be any less than completely _Ben_ , all the time. 

It frustrates Chon but is also why he doesn’t want Ben to take part in what he’s about to do – he has to try to preserve some part of Ben’s ridiculous idealism. It sometimes worries Chon that Ben being so positive about the world is one day going to fuck him up but then he figures that hey, that’s what Chon is there for. He can shoulder on all the bad, no problem.

“Hey, Chon,” Sam says, just when Chon had almost forgotten that there was anyone else in the car with him.

“Yeah?” Chon groans.

He doesn’t feel very much like talking but Sam is his friend and they saved each other’s lives many times when Chon was still military. It matters enough for Chon to lend himself to a bit of small talk.

“You think that… that Frankie’s dead?”

Chon is pretty sure that Frankie is dead – he knows Frankie wouldn’t have let anyone take O otherwise. Frankie was Sam’s best friend, though, so Chon can’t blame him for not being willing to fully face the truth. If it was Ben who’d been killed – but he can’t think about that.

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” Sam says before Chon can decide on how brutally honest he should be. “He’d have fought to protect your girl. He has to be dead.”

“We’ll make the motherfuckers pay,” Chon says by way of comfort.

They resume their watching of the house on the other side of the road. This one may be the right one, the one where they’re keeping O. Chon has looked for days, hoping that Ben’s negotiations to free O in exchange for money are distracting enough that the cartel doesn’t suspect what Chon is doing behind his friend’s back. 

There’ve been a couple of people coming and going so far, all Mexicans – not that it means much in this neighborhood. Chon massages the back of his neck with a stifled groan; since O, he hasn’t gotten much in the way of sleep, only short naps to prevent his body from shutting down. Hopefully, it will all be over soon – when he’s as sure as can be that this is where O is kept prisoner, he’ll be able to mount a rescue and all hell will break loose. He can’t wait.

A car pulls in by the house, and a man gets out. He has a thick mustache and looks exactly like what he is – Elena Sanchez’s favorite enforcer, Lado. 

“Bingo,” Chon murmurs, and slides off his seat to get his head down.

They’ve never met, but Chon has seen pictures of the man and he’s ready to bet that Lado knows what he looks like too. Probably has been watching them, preparing O’s abduction.

Lado is on the phone, standing by his car in plain sight. It is very tempting to shoot the man in the head, but it would be very counter-productive in terms of rescuing O. Lado lowers his hand, phone conversation over, and looks into the distance, like he’s waiting for someone. Chon starts feeling the slightest twirl of unease, climbing up his spine.

Another car pulls up – Chon counts four men inside, plus Lado and his blood-thirsty reputation. Chon can blood-thirst with the best of them, but it’s just him and Sam, because the potential Navy Seal backup are watching over other houses, too far away to be of any immediate help.

“Shit,” Chon says, and pulls out his gun. 

He’s about to ask Sam to do the same, but a quick glance on his right tells him he doesn’t need to. With his left hand, he turns the key in the ignition – retreat isn’t defeat, Ben would say – but before he has the time to start the car another vehicle makes a turn into the street and arrives just in front of them, its lights blinding.

“Shit,” he hears Sam swear, and a look in the rear-view mirror tells him what he expected – that Lado and his men are coming for them.

Chon thinks about O, and Ben.

_I’m sorry._

\---

Ben is awakened by a call on his computer. He swears, jumps out of bed with his heart thumping hard in his chest, calls out for Chon – no answer. Ben almost trips himself over to reach his computer in time.

A click and the face of a woman fills the screen – a beautiful woman with slick black hair and red lips, and a hard gleam in her eyes. Ben doesn’t have to wonder about her identity, but it is a surprise to be faced with Elena Sanchez. Ben doesn’t expect any good coming from it.

“You failed us,” Elena says, and somehow the royal plural pronoun doesn’t sound odd in her mouth.

“We, what?” Ben stutters.

“Your friend, Mr. ‘Eat Shit Caviar’,” she spats out the words like they taste bad, “tried to rescue your girlfriend.”

Chon did – what? Ben feels like his mind hasn’t cleared enough from sleep for this shit. Chon tried to rescue O. That sounds… just like him, actually, and Ben curses himself for not paying more attention to what his friend has been doing lately.

“We had an agreement, and you broke our trust,” Elena pursues, “It’s the second time. The first time you told us you agreed with a partnership with us but you lied, and you tried to get away. Now you say you’re going to cooperate, but you try to get your girlfriend back. I’m going to start thinking that you can’t be trusted at all.” 

“I’m sorry, we can make it right, please don’t–”

“I have been more than patient. You have to face the consequences of your actions.”

“Wait, what do you–”

There’s no time to think, no time to discuss – O appears on the screen, tied to a chair, just as she was the first time they saw her after she was kidnapped. There are men holding her down while another one places her little finger between the blades of a pair of shears.

The heartfelt _no!_ Ben wants to shout gets stuck in his throat. The blades snap; O _screams_. Then it’s Elena again, cool and regal as ever.

“Now I want to know something,” she says. “Were you aware of what your friend was doing?”

Ben thinks that it’s unfair that he’s supposed to hold a conversation when he’s shaking to the tip of his fingers and his mouth is dry as the desert. 

“Well?” Elena insists.

Some ingrained feeling of solidarity wants him to back up Chon no matter what, but on the other hand there’s O, and what Elena could do to her – _ohgodohgodohgod_ – if she thinks she doesn’t have anyone trustworthy to bargain with.

“No,” Ben says, and tries to swallow what little spit he has left. “I had no idea.”

Elena’s eyes narrow, and she studies him for a moment.

“Fine,” she says at last. “This is your last warning. The next thing to get cut will be your girlfriend’s head. You will need to keep your partner on a short leash if you want her to live.”

“Where – what have you done with Chon?”

“Nothing. He will be returned to you tomorrow. I remind you of our deal – for three years, we study your methods in exchange for our protection and our connections. For one year we keep Ophelia to ensure your cooperation. Also, tomorrow morning, and every Sunday from now on, you will have ten minutes of conversation with your girlfriend at 10 am. To keep you aware of what you could lose.”

“Thank you,” he chokes out, though he doesn’t feel very thankful.

“You will learn humility, Mr. Leonard.”

The window shuts down before Ben has the time to formulate a reply.

The rest of the day is a living nightmare. He tries, without much hope, to call Chon several times. He tries to call Chon’s Navy Seal friends, but the ones he manages to contact haven’t heard from Chon since yesterday. It only confirms what Elena said, and although she assured him that Chon is unharmed, it isn’t enough to keep Ben from worrying – when he doesn’t want to have his fist in Chon’s face.

All in all, it’s better than thinking about O.

The next morning brings him Chon on their doorstep, tied up like a pig ready for slaughter. At first he looks unconscious, but when Ben leans over him, Chon lets out a groan and says in a rough voice, “Untie me, fuck.”

Ben has a thousand things to tell Chon, but he complies without a word. The minute Chon is free, he rushes to his room, not letting Ben the time to ask him if he’s okay or what the hell he thought he was doing. There’s a little box on the ground next to where Chon was lying; when Ben picks it up and opens it, he finds a finger. It has flecks of O’s nail varnish. He closes the box and swallows until the nausea passes.

The time for the call promised by Elena is close, so Ben goes to Chon’s room and knocks on the door. He wonders if Chon knows about what happened to O. Part of him wants to show him the box and hurl it at his face; the other part wants to lose the box and forget everything about it. For the moment, it stays on the kitchen table.

“Go away,” Chon says after Ben has pounded on his door for a moment.

“Elena said she would let us talk to O for ten minutes,” Ben says. “It’s almost time.”

It gets Chon out of his room, as expected. They stare at each other for a moment, and Ben says, “Do you know what they did to her?”

He’s proud of himself for refraining from saying _what_ you _did to her_ , because that makes him the better man.

Chon says, “Yeah,” and it sounds like talking is painful for him. There’s some bruising on his face and dried blood above his left eye.

They don’t exchange another word before the call. Seeing O on the computer screen is both comforting and terrible – she’s looking at them, unlike the last time Ben saw her, but she’s pale and her hair hangs tangled and greasy on each side of her face. It’s a relief, Ben admits cowardly, that they can’t see her hand.

“Hey, baby,” Ben says, and tries to blink away the tears in his eyes.

She smiles and it lightens her face. “Hey, guys,” she says.

Next to Ben, Chon is keeping very still. “O,” he says.

“Chon?” O’s brow furrows. “Are you okay?”

“I’m sorry,” he says, then turns around and runs away.

“Is he alright?” O asks Ben. “His face…”

“He’s fine,” Ben assures her, with a little more confidence than he feels. “He… Do you know what happened?”

“They said Chon tried to come for me.” She grimaces, and raises a hand – her uninjured hand – to rub at her forehead. “Sorry – they gave me some drugs, so I’m a little…” She waves her hand vaguely, then half-smiles. “Wish I had some of your weed right now.”

“Wish I could give you some. Wish I could… O, I’m sorry. It’s our fault, all this, we…”

“It’s okay, Ben. I know that if you had known this would happen…”

“We would have taken the deal. We would have… anything. I swear. I’d give anything to have you back with us.”

“I know,” O says. “I know.”

They talk for a little longer, mostly words of love and reassurance. After the call ends, Ben takes a moment to bask in the memory of his girlfriend’s voice, feeling both better and worse than before. He goes again to Chon’s room, not bothering with knocking this time. The room is dark, but Ben can make out the shape of Chon lying down on his bed with his arm over his eyes. His whole body language screams _leave me alone_ , and Ben feels some of his anger deflate in spite of himself.

“She said to tell you that she loves you,” Ben says.

Chon makes a low sound, which could be acceptance or denial.

“I do too, you know,” Ben adds. “In case it matters.”

\---

Life goes on as normal, O’s new normal. They changed locations at some point, though she’s a little fuzzy on the details as it happened just after. After they cut her finger off.

Avoiding looking at her injured hand has turned into an art form, and at first she bumped it a lot into various pieces of furniture and had to feel this agonizing pain all over again every time. The hand is still bandaged, but she can’t stand more than the glimpses of it she’s had so far, of her hand shaped like a Simpsons character’s, with a weird bump on the side. 

She’s now taking full advantage of the authorization she got to write her mom some emails to keep her from suspecting the truth, and she weaves tales of her mad adventures in Paris, complete with the appropriate pictures – thank God for the internet. She can’t help but let her mind wander and think less about her fantasy trip to Europe, and more about Ben and Chon and how they’re doing without her. 

She knows how much time has passed thanks to their Sunday rendezvous – it’s been a little more than two weeks. Those conversations seem to be timed just right for the torture to be optimal, both too long and not enough. Just when they have settled into a conversation and O starts to feel relaxed and soothed, it’s time to say goodbye and see you next week. It’s an exercise in frustration.

Ben always makes efforts to be smiling and comforting, to which O responds in kind. Chon always looks withdrawn and barely utters a word. O can see that it’s driving a rift between the boys, whether because Ben is mad at Chon for what happened or because Chon feels guilty and pushes him away. There’s never enough time for O to address the problem, and every week O wishes so bad that she could be with them and write off this whole experience as a nightmare that she muffles sobs in her hand with Esteban as a silent witness. 

Esteban is watching her right now, sending her quick glances while he’s playing on his phone. She’s feeling more and more comfortable in his constant presence, more than with the girl – whose name she still doesn’t know – and that man, Lado. _He_ makes her skin crawl, and even though he’s objectively scary there’s something more to his peculiar brand of scariness that she can’t put her finger on. 

_Tomorrow we’re leaving for Rome_ , she writes as a conclusion to her email, _and we’re taking the night train. I’m very excited about it! Love, O._

Esteban’s phone rings, startling O out of her thoughts as she closes the laptop. After a few words in Spanish, Esteban looks up to O and says, “You’re leaving here to somewhere else. I have to get you ready.”

“What? Why?”

Did Chon try to find her again? Or Ben, or both of them? O feels cold with fear, thinking about what could have happened to them.

Esteban shrugs, shakes his head. “I don’t know. They don’t tell me anything.”

He binds her hands, oddly mindful of her wounded one, then the door is pushed open and Lado is there, his eyes fixed on O as he smiles, a slow, amused smile like he’s a cat and she’s a mouse trapped in a corner. Which, really, isn’t that far from reality.

“Go wait in the car,” he tells Esteban without diverting his eyes from O.

Esteban seems reluctant to leave – his eyes flick from Lado to O, then to Lado again, and his hand makes a fist, like he’s going to protest. It makes O’s sense of doom grow so strong that she’s almost ready to beg him not to leave her with Lado, but she doesn’t, and Esteban doesn’t say anything either and leaves the room as he’s told.

“Why do I have to move again?” O asks, full of false bravado. She’s proud that her voice isn’t shaking at all.

“The Queen is coming to California,” Lado tells her, with a quick, mocking smirk. “And she wants to see you. So we’re taking you to her house.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“But before that, I wanted to show you something.”

Lado takes a step forward, which instinctively makes O want to take a step back, but the couch behind her doesn’t leave her any room to move. Lado takes his phone out of the inside pocket of his jacket, every move slow and deliberate, looking at her like he doesn’t want to miss any of her reactions.

As it happens, he wants to show her a video, and at first, O can’t make sense of what the images are showing her. Then she realizes with a sharp shock that it’s _her_ , her face pressed against the wire netting that surrounded her bed in the first house. It’s her screams, and Lado’s looming shadow pressed behind her, moving against her.

Lado stops the video after a few seconds and looks at her with such malicious glee that O’s fear and horror is replaced by hot fury. Her hand are bound behind her back but her legs are free so she kicks him in the shin, as hard as she can with her bare foot.

The full insanity of what she did hits her in the form of Lado grabbing her neck and squeezing, leaving O choking and shaking with panic. She expects Lado to be mad with that dark anger that she sometimes sees in Chon, but instead he’s chuckling, watching her struggling to breathe. Tears of humiliation fill O’s eyes – she knows with sudden certainty that he isn’t going to kill her, or even hurt her too much. It’s enough for him to let her know that he _can_. 

He releases his grip a little so she doesn’t suffocate, and leans forward until his breath is warm and moist against her ear.

“Dream of me,” he says in a low voice. “When you’re in bed tonight. And tomorrow night. And the night after that.”

\---

They live in a sort of stasis for weeks. Then one morning, Dennis shows up at their place, all smiles and shit like everything is fine and dandy in Laguna Beach paradise.

“Boys!” he greets, loud and cheerful. “How’s business?”

Ben is the one who opened the door for him; Chon was doing push-ups on the balcony, trying to burn some of the restless energy that’s keeping him up at night. He hears Dennis’ voice and his mind gets cool and quiet like the water of a lake. 

“Chon, my man!” Dennis says as he steps out of the bay window.

“Dennis,” Chon says, getting to his feet. 

A heartbeat later he has Dennis pressed against the window with a knife on the fat asshole’s throat. Dennis tries to struggle but although he’s heavier than Chon, he has nothing on Chon’s murderous determination.

“Chon, what the fuck!” Ben calls.

Chon ignores him. He looks right into Dennis’ eyes until they shift and Dennis tries to turn his head to escape Chon’s stare. 

“You fucking asshole,” Chon says quietly, detaching every syllable. “You absolute motherfucker.”

“What? Chon, what the fuck is this–”

“Oh, don’t play this game with me. You fucking perfectly know what I’m talking about. I kept wondering, you know, about what had tipped them off that night. What mistake I had made. They knew I was there – maybe I hadn’t been careful enough. But it was you.” Chon presses the knife until blood pearls at the edge of it. “It was _you_ , obviously. The intel, I got it from you, and you _told_ them.”

Chon doesn’t really know what’s keeping him from slitting the bastard’s throat right here and now. Dennis is trembling against him, and Ben has gotten quiet. Except it wouldn’t get O back to them, wouldn’t bring Sam back to life. Yes, they shot Sam, right in front of Chon who knew that he should have been the one to take that bullet.

“I should kill you,” Chon says, testing the words.

It gets Dennis to find use of his tongue again. “Hey, now, wait a minute; I’m only looking after you guys. The cartel is way more than you can chew, and you have more to lose than your girlfriend, like your fucking _heads_. These guys aren’t joking, you know.”

Chon can’t tell whether this is a defense or an admission of guilt – sometimes, Dennis likes to muddle his messages with a flow of words. Dennis seems to interpret his silence as a sign that Chon is mellowing down, and tries to look appeasing. “We’ve been partners for how long, Chon? I made your business possible; we’ve been good to each other. And the beaches don’t lack pretty girls, if you catch my meaning.”

Like O is interchangeable, right. Fed up with the bullshit, Chon stabs him in the right hand – the same hand O got hurt – and keeps the hand trapped that way against the window with rivulets of blood running down to form puddles on the floor. Dennis screams, curses, red in the face.

“Chon,” Ben says. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what,” Chon asks, playing dense. His anger is cold and so sharp that he could cut Dennis’ head off with it, no weapon needed.

“Don’t kill him,” Ben says, something odd in his tone. “He’s a federal agent. We can’t deal with that right now.”

Chon takes a deep breath. It’s hard to let go, fucking hard enough to be physically painful, and if it was anyone but Ben asking him…

Dennis yelps in pain when Chon pulls his knife out. He cradles his bloody hand against his chest and glares at Chon. “You goddamn psycho! Don’t think that you can–”

Chon only realizes that his body has moved forward when Ben stops him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Go,” Ben says to Dennis, his voice icy cold like Chon has never heard before. “Just go.”

Dennis splutters, stumbles away while watching them with a mix of rage and wariness. When he’s gone, Ben lets his hand drop from Chon’s shoulder.

“Jesus,” he says, rubbing his face. 

“You should have let me kill him,” Chon says tonelessly. He looks down at his hands and sees that they’re shaking. 

“God, Chon, not everything is resolved by killing people.”

“Lots of things can. Think about what happened to O.”

“You think there’s any moment of the day when I forget about it? I _saw_ it, Chon. I have her finger in my room. Dennis does what Dennis fucking does; you do what you fucking do. Whose fault it is doesn’t change what O is going through.”

“So this is my fault,” Chon says, feels all the fatigue from not sleeping suddenly fall back on him like a wet sheet.

“That’s not what I said,” Ben says.

He looks like he’s about to try to touch him, and Chon wants desperately to be out of here, right now.

“’M gonna go out for a while,” he says, retreating inside.

“Chon, wait.”

Chon picks up his jacket, jumps into his car and drives until he finds a bar that Ben likely doesn’t know. It’s small, and packed, and not very clean, which Ben would frown upon because Ben is weird about things like that, sometimes. 

Chon orders himself a beer and goes to a corner table, taking refuge in the shadows. He wishes he could run away from himself as easily as he can run from other people. Two men enter the bar, Mexican men, and Chon knows they’re his surveillance team. Can’t go anywhere without a tail, these days. They don’t make any effort to hide; they choose a table right across the room from him and stare. Chon does his best to pretend they don’t exist.

“Is this seat free?”

It’s a girl of about his age; she has some sort of foreign accent, faint enough that Chon can’t identify it. At her smile, Chon can tell that she’s coming onto him.

“I guess so,” he says.

“What is a guy like you doing all alone?” she asks, sitting down with her knee almost brushing his.

Chon smirks, tips his beer. “Drinking.”

She laughs, her eyes crinkling at the corners. Chon remembers how he likes to make O laugh, and drops his smile. She notices and says, “Bad day?”

“Bad _month_.” 

She leans toward him. “Anything I can do to make it better?”

Chon takes a sip of his beer and studies her. She looks nothing like O, which is a point in her favor. Average height, a little on the plump side, with brown curly hair that goes to her chin. 

His silence seems to make her bold because she moves closer, and kisses him. Chon puts his beer bottle on the table and lets her do it, waiting to see where this is going. He feels her tongue against his lips and he parts them obligingly. It lasts for a moment, and isn’t unpleasant in the least. She breaks the kiss and looks up at him. “So?”

Chon thinks about it. Everything in his life is so fucked up at the moment. O gone, Ben maybe hating him. It could be a welcome distraction, sex with no strings attached, something he hasn’t had in a while. But Chon catches sight of the cartel men watching him, and all of sudden he’s too tired to deal with anything. 

“Nah, sorry. This really isn’t the right moment for me.”

“Oh, well.” She grins, carefree. “Your loss, I guess. Have a nice day.”

She leaves with a light touch on his shoulder. Chon looks in the men’s direction and sees one of them snigger. Chon’s vision narrows.

When he comes back later with a split lip and a bleeding nose, Ben exclaims and worries.

“Chon? What the fuck happened _again_?”

“Fucking stalkers,” Chon says.

\---

10 am on Sundays is a sacred time. It used to be that Sunday mornings were synonymous to lazing around in bed, morning sex, peace and quiet. Now Ben gets up early, cleans the house in his most neurotic moments, and waits, waits, waits. Usually Chon is around, doing one thing or another, but today he hasn’t gotten out of bed yet and Ben’s eyeing the time on his computer nervously, feeling like his mother must have felt whenever they had to go anywhere.

It’s not like Chon doesn’t need the sleep – often, when a nightmare wakes up Ben in the middle of the night, he can hear Chon move around in his room like a lion in a cage. But Ben is pretty sure that Chon is going to be mad at him if he misses their weekly ten minutes with their girlfriend.

“Chon, hey, wake up,” he calls, knocking on Chon’s door. “It’s Sunday. Chon! You’re gonna miss O.”

The ringtone on his computer calls for him – Ben is torn for a second, but missing O’s call is unthinkable, so he runs to his computer. When he sees O, nothing else matters for a second.

“Ben!” The genuine happiness in her voice warms him to the core.

“Hi, babe. How you doing?”

“Pretty good, I guess, mostly bored.” She’s been looking better since she started living at Elena’s house, less haunted. “Where’s Chon?”

“Chon’s, uh.” Ben looks around, hoping for a last minute appearance of his friend. “He’s asleep. I went to knock on his door but he didn’t answer, and then you called.”

“He didn’t answer?” 

She frowns, and Ben shares her feelings – Chon is generally a light sleeper – but doesn’t want her to worry about something she won’t have any control over.

“He hasn’t been sleeping well since – well, lately, so I guess he just crashed, and now he’s catching up on all the rest he didn’t get. I’m sure he’s okay.”

“Yeah. I just… Means I won’t see him ‘til next week.”

“Oh, yeah.” Ben realizes he’s been standing the whole time and sits down. “Sorry. I should have tried to wake him up earlier, I just thought he needed rest and–”

“No, I didn’t say that to… It’s not your fault.” She tries to smile. “We only have seven minutes left. Tell me about your week.”

This is the thing about the ten-minute limit, they have to make each minute count. There’s never enough time, though, and soon enough it’s 10:09.

“So. Talk to you next week. I love you, O.”

“I love you too. Miss you.” O twirls a strand of blond hair around her finger. “Can you, uh, can you send me an email to tell me about Chon? To tell me he’s okay. I’m allowed to check my emails, though I won’t be able to reply.”

“Okay, I’ll do that. I’ll make him write it and apologize to you for worrying you.” Ben glances at the time. “Okay, now I really have to go. Love you.”

O blows him a kiss, and disappears. Ben takes a moment to feel empty and weary before he tries to go wake Chon up again. 

Knocking on the door for a full minute until his knuckles are sore doesn’t work. Worry is tying knots in Ben’s stomach – he tries to think back on all the interactions he’s had with Chon lately, for clues about what might be wrong. The truth is, and Ben’s ashamed to realize it now, they’ve done their best to avoid each other and have limited their conversations to business matters. It’s not even that Ben is still mad at Chon – just, it’s easier to move around O’s absence when they aren’t together. 

“Chon, last warning before I get inside and kick your ass out of bed.”

“Wha’?”

Sign of life, hurrah. The slurred tone isn’t a whole lot comforting, though, so Ben opens the door anyway. He finds Chon in his bed, sheets knotting around his legs.

“Ben, the fuck,” Chon moans and presses his face against a pillow. 

Ben goes to sit on the bed.

“Chon, are you okay? I almost knocked the door down trying to wake you up.”

“What time’s it?” Chon asks, his voice muffled.

“It’s like 10:15.”

“What?”

Chon rolls over, and pushes himself up on an elbow.

“Why didn’t you–” He stops to swallow and wince. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“I told you, I tried.” Ben’s concern has quieted somewhat, but there’s still something obviously wrong with Chon. He goes to put a hand on Chon’s arm, and jerks away. “Christ, you’re burning up.”

Chon falls back on the bed, looking up to the ceiling.

“Feel terrible,” he complains, and sounds like he’s talking through crushed glass.

“How long have you been like this?”

“Wasn’t this bad, but I’ve felt… kind of wiped out for the past couple of days.”

Chon’s the most tireless person Ben knows, barely even needs sleep, which Ben has always envied him at length.

“Okay, I’m calling Pete.”

Chon doesn’t protest, which is a testament of how bad he must feel.

Pete has no problem taking house calls, not when it comes to his favorite suppliers. This is one of the perks of the business: the people they meet come with all kinds of skills and are always willing to help them. 

Pete’s diagnosis is made after a quick examination that Chon endures in a limp, completely out-of-character way.

“Congratulations, man,” he tells Chon, rubbing cheerfully at the balding spot on his head. “You have mono.”

Chon sends him a look like he wants to kill him, then rolls on his side, turning his back to them.

“That’s…” Ben had mono when he was a teenager, but he doesn’t remember much about it, except that he slept a lot. “What should I do to take care of him?”

“Not much, just watch out for the fever, force him to stay in bed, make him drink plenty of fluids, yadda, yadda. Oh, and no kisses for awhile.” Pete chuckles – most things are a laughing matter to him.

Ben gives him his payment – weed rather than money – and shows him to the door. When he returns to Chon’s room it seems like he’s sleeping. Ben leans on the doorway, watching him until Chon says in gravelly voice, “Getting your rocks off?”

Ben snorts. “Right, you got me there. It’s my dirty secret.” He keeps silent for a beat. “So, mono. How did that happen?”

Chon rolls on his back to look at him. “Got a question, Ben?” Ben casts him a pointed look. “There was a girl, like a month ago. We kissed.”

Ben presses his lip together. It’s not really any of his business, and O isn’t the jealous type. She doesn’t mind them having some fun and there isn’t any hard and fast rule about exclusivity in their relationship, but with the situation as it is, it feels too much like… like she’s really gone, and Chon is moving on.

“If you got something to say, say it,” Chon rasps. 

“What, no, there’s nothing to say, I don’t really care,” Ben says in a voice that betrays that he _does_ care, a bit. “It’s just, what about O?”

“What about her?” It’s a little too forceful, and Ben sees the grimace on Chon’s face as it puts a strain on his sore throat. “It’s not like anything happened,” Chon says quietly. “She was hitting on me, we kissed, and I said no to anything more. End of the story. Look, I feel like complete shit, so can you...”

Ben isn’t sure what about that kiss still bothers him so much, but he also feels bad that Chon is so sick. If it’s karma backlash, it’s probably more than he deserves. 

“I’ll let you sleep,” he says, and gently closes the door behind him.

\---

Being able to get out of her room is the best part about living at Elena’s house, and at first she spends time exploring, testing the boundaries. She can go anywhere inside except in Elena’s rooms. She can’t go outside. There are men at each entrance, men patrolling in the gardens with dogs. O doesn’t even know where she is because she was blindfolded when she came.

After a month and a half, she wants to be able to get out and feel the sun on her skin so bad she can taste it. 

Someone knocks on her door.

“Come in.”

It’s one of Elena’s men, with a computer in his hands, because it’s Sunday and almost 10. O doesn’t know his name, although she often sees him around. She kind of misses Esteban, hasn’t seen him since she got here. With him, it almost felt like she was a human being and not merchandise. 

She thanks the man for the computer, and tries to ignore him as he stands in a corner of the room. Privacy is another thing she misses.

Ben’s face is the first thing she sees as the call is answered. It cheers up O immensely. 

“Look who I got with me,” he says, and the image shifts a little so she can see that Chon is sitting next to him.

“Chon!” O exclaims, delighted. “How’re you feeling? Any better?”

“Look.” Ben clears his throat. “I’m gonna leave you two alone to catch up.”

“What, why?”

“You and I had a one-on-one conversation last week, so it’s only fair. And that’ll do you good to talk without me… interfering.”

“You don’t ‘interfere’!” O protests, but actually it’s undeniable that between him and Chon, Ben is always the one doing most of the talking.

She doesn’t want him to go, though.

“I love you, baby,” Ben says gently. “I’ll talk to you next week.”

“Love you too.”

Ben leaves and it’s only O and Chon, for the first time in months. Chon looks terrible – pale skin, red-rimmed eyes, holding himself with his shoulders slumped, like it’s too much effort to sit straight. 

“So, how you’re doing, really,” O says.

“I’m tired. All I do is sleep and sleep some more. It’s fucking annoying, too.”

O chuckles. She can imagine how Chon would hate that. 

“You got mono, huh. Isn’t it like, a teenager disease?” she teases him.

“Shut up. I guess you’re wondering how I…” Chon starts.

“You don’t have to tell me. It doesn’t matter.”

“It was just one kiss, from a girl in a bar. There was never anything more. I don’t even know her name.”

“It would have been okay either way,” O says, and even though she means it, she can’t deny the little twist of relief that she feels. It’s hard, sometimes, to think about how the world keeps going without her.

“You know I love you,” Chon says roughly.

“I know.”

She does, but it feels good to hear it from Chon, who doesn’t say it half as often as Ben does. 

“I love you too, Chon.”

After the conversation is over she’s sort of reenergized, and it doesn’t feel as crushing as usual that she has to wait one week to see and hear them. She mentally thanks Ben for his insight. 

In the evening, she’s invited to dine with the Red Queen. It’s not the first time, and past the initial fear she’s gotten to look forward to those meals. It says something about how fucked up her life has become that the one person who treats her like more than a prisoner to guard is the one responsible for the situation in the first place.

“How was your day?” Elena asks as they start to eat in their usual awkward silence.

It’s her way to spark up a conversation. How strangely, surreally mundane. O has her head bend over her plate, and she’s clumsily trying to cut her food while ignoring her hand. It’s now bandage-free, which makes it hard to avoid seeing the ugly-looking stump she has in place of her finger. 

“Good. I talked to Chon and Ben,” she says in a light tone, like she’s talking to one of her friends. “Mostly Chon, actually. Ben wanted to give us our space.”

“Really?” Elena looks away from her food to glance at O. “Is it how it works? Do you have to split up your time equally?”

“It’s not really like that, we…” O pushes a lock of hair behind her ear. “It’s more like we play it by ear, you know, according to what feels right for everyone.”

She doesn’t like to talk about her relationships, knows Elena doesn’t understand nor approves, which is really fucking funny given the circumstances. 

“And Chon is sick, poor guy, he has mono, so he’s too tired to do anything, and…” O chuckles, thinking about Chon’s disgruntled expression. “It’s funnier if you know him, he hates being cooped up.”

“Mono? It’s what they call, ‘the kissing disease’, right?” The way she says it, O can hear the quotation marks. “Does that mean he kissed someone?”

“Yeah, he told me about it. It was some girl in a bar.” She’s looking at her food but she can feel Elena’s pointed stare as distinctly as if Elena was poking her with a stick. “It’s not like he cheated on me, okay? He didn’t sleep with her. And even if he did, I don’t care.”

Elena shakes her head. “Of course you do, every woman does even if she pretends the contrary. It isn’t right. Those boys should treat you with more respect. It’s not how a love story is supposed to go.”

There’s a very loud _cling_ as O drops her fork and knife on her plate.

“Then what are we doing here, Elena?”

For a moment, she’s scared that she’s gone too far, and is going to lose another body part. But Elena merely lets out a _humpf_ , and puts a bit of meat into her mouth.

“Women have to fight for men’s respect, it’s how it is. Women shouldn’t let men treat them as commodities. It’s what I think.”

 _Oh really?_ O refrains from pointing out the irony of Elena using her as a bargaining chip with her boyfriends. She probably knows what Elena would say, anyway: it’s business. Business knows no feeling, and no gender.

O thinks about what Lado did, about what Elena would think of _that_ , and shivers.

\---

Chon lies around in bed. It seems like it’s all he’s doing these days. The other symptoms are gone – the fever, the sore throat, the headaches – but the exhaustion remains, sapping all his strength like an invisible vampire.

“Hey, Chon.”

Chon looks up to see Ben leaning against the door, with his arms crossed over his chest and his brow furrowed in the expression of concern that he’s worn since Chon got sick. In a way, Chon is grateful that O isn’t here with them, because it wouldn’t have been fun to have the two of them gang up on him.

“How you feeling today?” Ben asks.

Chon flips him off. 

“Okay, just asking!” Ben raises his hands in surrender. “Feel like going for a swim? Maybe playing some volleyball?”

Chon considers this. He hasn’t been further than the balcony for close to a month. 

“Yeah, okay.”

Seawater does wonders for Chon’s mood. It’s June so the ocean is still icy cold, just the way he likes it. He plunges underwater, where the world goes all muffled and quiet. Comes up to the surface with a gasp, and swims away from the beach – used to be, he could go until the shore was a mere line behind him, but quickly he feels like his arms have turned into jelly and decides to swim back to safety. Drowning isn’t a fun way to die, or so he’s heard.

On the beach Ben is already out, water making his body glisten under the sun, and he holds a volley ball in his hands.

“Wanna play?” He smirks. “See if you still got it.”

“I’ll show you,” Chon says, walking on the burning sand, but after a few steps his world tilts sideways and he finds himself knees on the ground without understanding how he got there. 

Ben is at his side quickly, brushing against him but not touching.

“Are you okay? Looks like you overdid it.”

“Fuck it, it was just a short swim,” Chon grouses, hitting the sand with his fist in frustration. “It’s been more than a month.”

“You know what Pete said, it can be like that for a while.” Ben helps him get up. “Do you wanna go back to the house to rest?”

Chon shakes his head. “No, I’m tired of being inside. I’ll rest for a bit and we’ll play later.” Ben looks dubious, which angers Chon. “We’ll play,” he insists.

Out of solidarity, Ben sits with him in the sand and they talk a little, feeling the burn of the sun. Chon imagines that O is with them and lying on a towel with a book, perfecting her tan. Her long legs, the curve of her breasts underlined by a bikini bra that leaves little to the imagination… He can just see it. 

Once Chon decides he’s had enough rest, they play volleyball. The game is short-lived because Chon soon finds himself out of breath, but Ben doesn’t mock his poor performance. Chon wishes he would, because this sympathetic bullshit is starting to get on his nerves. 

When they go back home the sun is coming down, and Chon feels dizzy with fatigue. He goes to his room and falls face first on his bed. He dozes off, maybe even sleeps a little, until he hears Ben’s footsteps.

“Chon?” Ben whispers. “You awake?”

“If I wasn’t then I am now, you elephant,” Chon groans, and forces himself to rise from his bed. “What d’you want?”

He squints and sees Ben silhouetted against the rectangle of light cut by the doorway, wearing a t-shirt and boxers. 

“You want some?” Ben raises his hand and the smell tells Chon that he’s holding a joint.

Chon hasn’t smoked since O was kidnapped. He can’t really explain why, just that it isn’t something that he’s felt like doing lately – something he has felt safe enough to do.

“It’s not like you’re in any state to go to war anyway,” Ben says. 

“Fine, c’mere.” Chon pats the bed next to him and Ben comes to sit down. 

They pass the joint back and forth for a while in silence. Chon starts to feel both like his limbs are made of lead and like he’s going to float away at any moment.

“I miss sex,” Ben says out of the blue. 

He’s laid back against Chon’s pillows and his elbow brushes against Chon’s shoulder every time he takes the joint to his mouth.

“Know what you mean, buddy,” Chon says, and reaches out to pat Ben clumsily on the thigh. 

“Shit, that makes it sound like I miss O only for the sex but no. I miss talking to O, like, face-to-face. I miss laughing with O. I miss random arguments about whose turn it is to clean up the bathroom. I miss taking her dancing and watching her twirl and shine and be so fucking happy.”

“I miss sex with O,” Chon says, which makes Ben burst out laughing.

“Yeah, that too, ‘course,” he says.

“Like that tongue thing she does when she blows you?” Chon continues, caught up in memories. “And when you reach between her legs and she’s already wet, man, how she always wants it, two of us and she’s never fucking tired of it. Sometimes I come behind her, and she’s doing something else, like cutting vegetables, or checking the mail or some shit, and I take her by the hips hard enough to bruise and…”

Chon hears Ben’s sharp intake of breath, and takes it for a noise of disapproval. 

“You’re always so fucking careful with her,” he says. “She’s not made of glass.”

“Yeah, I know, I don’t really care what you two do, as long as she’s okay with it.” Ben laughs, and it sounds a bit shaky. “You know, sometimes she likes it when I kiss the bruises you did to her, and uh, and lick them.”

“Really? Huh.”

It’s been too long since Ben has passed the joint, so he pushes up, about to make a move to reclaim it, but that’s when he notices that Ben’s hard. Chon can see the outline of his dick getting fat underneath the cotton of his boxers.

Ben catches him looking and blows out some smoke, then coughs a little.

“Pot’s making me horny,” he says, a little apologetic. 

“Yeah,” Chon says. He’s been holding his hand up and drops it back on the bed, fingers grazing Ben’s hip.

“Here,” Ben says and holds the joint out for him.

“Thanks.”

Chon fills his lungs with smoke, then blows it out slowly, watching it swirl up to the ceiling. The roar of the ocean outside is regular, soothing.

“One time,” Ben starts, his voice low, “I was sucking on her tits – you know how her sensitive her nipples are?”

Chon groans – yeah, he does know, he can see O’s breasts like she’s right there in front of him, her arms open to him. Always so open to him. Fuck.

“There was a bruise at the base of her left breast, where it’s all round and soft – it looked like a bite mark. I wondered – but I didn’t dare ask her, just kept touching it. Fuck, got me so hot.”

Chon reaches out to adjust himself – he’s kept his swim shorts on and they’re tenting with his hard on. He ends up rubbing it lazily, listening to Ben’s voice, which has become a bit rough. Ben gets silent and Chon wants to keep him talking so he says, “Yeah, it was probably a bite mark, she likes me to bite her sometimes. Especially where it’s sensitive like her tits or… the inside of her thighs.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen bruises there too when I… when I go down on her. When I put my lips on them she gets so wet and she–” Ben’s breath hitches. “Chon.”

Chon wonders where the joint has gone – maybe Ben has put it in the ashtray by Chon’s bed, it was almost over anyway.

“What?” he says.

“I, uh.”

Ben puts a hand on his shoulder and slides down the bed so they’re at the same level, turning to face him, close enough that Chon can feel the warmth of his breath on him.

“What?” he repeats, his voice catching for some reason.

Ben licks his lips and leans forward, presses his mouth against his. Chon’s brain sort of short-circuits then, and he reaches out to grab Ben’s elbow and draw him closer, deepening the kiss. Ben’s hair falls on Chon’s face; his arm circles Chon’s waist and they’re chest against chest. Chon feels hot, mad, breathless, and Ben lets out a low moan from deep in his throat.

“Let me, let me,” he says and slides his hand inside Chon’s shorts, his warm hand, grabs his dick hard and takes it out.

Chon growls and passes his fingers under the elastic of Ben’s boxers, drags them down, nails scratching his ass. He presses his hips against Ben’s so that their dicks are rubbing against each other, all slippery, and it feels so, so good.

“ _Ah_ , fuck, Chon, yeah, _ah ah_.” Ben’s hips thrust against his roughly, his hand fisted in Chon’s short hair.

They grind against each other at an increasing pace, and when Ben comes his fingers dig painfully into Chon’s scalp. Chon comes soon after with a groan.

They roll apart, breathing loudly. Chon feels cold and sticky from his come and Ben’s, but the goddamn chronic exhaustion is catching up with him and his eyelids weigh a ton. His eyes close against his will and he falls asleep.

\---

Ben is torn back to consciousness by the feeling that he’s suffocating, pressed down by a weight on his chest. His eyes open and he sees Chon’s face close to his own, and wants to call his name but all that comes out is some gargled cry making him aware that Chon’s hand is around his throat.

Just when Ben starts seeing black spots Chon’s eyes widen; he releases Ben and scrambles away from him on the bed. Ben coughs painfully, fresh air tearing him inside, and brings a hand to his throat. Man, but does Chon have a strong grip.

“I’m sorry,” Chon says, sounding upset, which is a rare sound on him. He rubs furiously at his eyes. “Fuck, that’s why I don’t like people spending the night with me.”

It just occurs to Ben that indeed, O spends the night with him a lot more often than she spends it with Chon. He never wondered why, always too happy to have her with him.

“Does this happen often?” he asks, swallowing to soothe the hurt in his throat. His heartbeat is slowing down. “Did you do that to O?”

“I’ve never… choked her, not like that, but she got a few punches. And it doesn’t happen that often, really, it’s just kind of unpredictable.”

“Did you have a nightmare?”

Now that the adrenaline rush is subsiding, leaving Ben feeling a little cold, he’s starting to get worried. It was always obvious, every time Chon came back from one of his tours, how the war had changed him. There’s never been any sign that he was experiencing that sort of problem, though.

“No,” Chon says. “It’s not like that. I don’t dream. I just… occasionally get violent in my sleep. Must be a reflex or something. I’m sorry, okay?” 

“I’m not mad, I just, you know. You know I’m there for you anytime, right?”

Chon snorts. “Yes, mom, I know. Can we go back to sleep now? I’m tired.”

Ben is tired too, so he lies back against his pillow and closes his eyes. It’s only when he starts to relax that the memory of what exactly happened for him to be sleeping in Chon’s bed comes back to him. He sits up in a jolt and looks at Chon – but Chon is already asleep. Ben could get up and go sleep in his own bed, but it seems like too much effort. He falls asleep again. 

The next morning, Ben is awake before Chon, which is pretty par for the course since Chon’s illness. In the bathroom, Ben looks at himself into the mirror and examines his throat: there are some faint bruises there from Chon’s fingers when he tried to choke Ben in his sleep. Ben fingers them and thinks about their conversation about bruises from last night. His mouth goes dry.

When he steps into the shower, he’s still thinking about it. It’s unsurprising; not every day that you find yourself sleeping with your best friend, after all. Who is a guy, when you don’t think you’ve ever been attracted to guys before. And yet when Ben thinks about their brief but intense interlude from last night, of the aftermath when Chon passed out immediately and Ben had to clean up them both, he feels his cock start to plump a little. He touches himself, and makes himself come quickly to a confused mix of memories of Chon’s hands, O’s breasts, Chon’s mouth, O’s fingers.

He knew he loved them both, one of those facts of life, but this is a whole new level. Ben gets out of the shower, dries himself and gets dressed, and finds Chon leaning against the rail of their balcony, watching the ocean. He’s still wearing the same swim shorts from yesterday.

“Morning,” Ben says, joining him.

Chon glances at him. “Hey. Did you sleep okay after I tried to kill you?”

“Oh, yeah. You’ll have to try harder if you want to kill me.”

Chon laughs quietly. When he sobers up, Ben knows what he’s thinking about.

“So,” Chon says. “That happened, huh.”

“Unless we can read each other’s wet dreams I guess it did, yeah.”

Chon frowns. “Man, I just thought about it – I hope I didn’t infect you. It would suck if you got sick too.”

“I got mono when I was a teenager, so I think I’ll be fine – Pete said something about the virus staying in your body all your life.”

“Good, ‘cause I didn’t feel like nursing you back to health. And – virus matters set aside – how do you feel about what happened?”

“Me? Oh, uh. Confused, I guess? I mean, does it change everything? Is it going to happen again? Do we _want_ it to happen again? What about O, what do we tell her?”

“Hmm.” Chon’s gaze stays fixed on the horizon. “Maybe it’ll happen again, maybe it won’t. I don’t think it changes much. You’re still the same Ben I know, far as I can tell.”

Ben looks at him – he does look like the same Chon too, the one Ben has known for years, has mounted a business with, has lived with, has shared a girlfriend with. He’s not sure he agrees on how much it doesn’t change things, though.

“Have you ever… with a guy?” he asks.

“No. Can’t say it ever occurred to me either. But if it had to happen, figure it would be with you.” He turns to Ben with a half-smile.

For some reason, it makes Ben’s cheeks burn. They’re standing very close to each other, and he’s never been that keenly aware of Chon before. Ben is struck by the desire to be even closer, to check if that thing from last night still feels real out in daylight. He leans in, presses a kiss against Chon’s mouth – chaste at first, nothing more than lip contact, then Chon opens up to him and their tongues tangle, all slow and lazy. 

They separate and Chon slightly turns away, but he doesn’t seem to object to what happened. Ben clears his throat.

“You up for some breakfast?”

Chon smirks. “Oh, so you still respect me in the morning? That’s good to know.”

“Yeah, don’t know if I can say as much about you,” Ben says, chuckling. He quiets down. “What do you think we should tell O?”

“I don’t see why we should have to hide anything from her. You know her, I don’t think she’ll mind; maybe she’ll even find it hot.”

It conjures some images in Ben’s mind, and from Chon’s look he’s having similar thoughts.

“Breakfast then?”

“Yeah, breakfast.”

\---

It is, ironically, Elena who gives O the idea. 

“You don’t speak Spanish? Really?”

O bows her head on her dinner plate.

“Well, I took Spanish in high school but I pretty much forgot everything. Lack of practice, I guess.”

“But you live in California! There are many people who speak Spanish here.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” O grimaces. “I probably didn’t try. I wish I could…”

Inspiration strikes suddenly, leaving O still and dazed. This _can_ work, she can make it work, and feels almost giddy with the realization. For the first time in a long time, she’s not completely helpless.

“I should take Spanish lessons,” she says, feeling like she’s hearing someone else talk. “There probably are CDs or something that can help me, and it’s not like I have tons of things to keep me busy here.”

“That’s a really good idea,” Elena says, looking pleased. “I can certainly find something for you.”

“I will need something to record myself too,” O says. “So I can fix my pronunciation… I could even have you listen to me, and you can correct me.”

Elena is nodding, visibly enthralled at the perspective, and O relaxes. 

“I’ll get you what you need,” Elena says.

And sure enough, the day after, O finds herself with a book, four CDs, and a small MP3 recorder. She familiarizes herself with the device, but it’s pretty easy to use – four big buttons: record, play, pause, stop. She leafs through the Spanish book, thinking that she can actually do the lessons as well. At least she’ll get out of here with one more skill.

The next part of her plan requires her to wait for an opportunity. Lado comes to the house every week or so, and he never passes by the opportunity to pay a visit to O. He never does more than leer at her and talk a little, talk dirty, but every time it leaves her shaky and wanting to scrub her skin raw. She has these dreams where he rapes her, but she doesn’t know if they are memories or her imagination filling the blanks. Either way, it doesn’t matter.

She’s taken to keeping the MP3 taped on her, as she never knows what day he’s going to show up. On a Monday, she hears someone knock on her door and know it’s him at the affected way the knocking is done, like he wants her to be aware that he _could_ come at any moment without announcing himself.

Her fingers hurriedly find the record button under her t-shirt.

“Come in,” she says. She doesn’t try not to sound scared, knowing it will please him, make him arrogant.

He comes in, the infuriating smile on his face, a man in conquered territory.

“You look beautiful today, _cosita linda_ ,” he says.

O sits still, letting him come closer. He takes the step slowly, like the predator he is. She doesn’t move. His hand brushes against her hair and she flinches away. He chuckles. He’s always found her disgusted reactions very funny.

“I could tell Elena,” she says, eager to make him talk. “What you did to me. That you raped me.”

“Oh, that’s a big word for a little girl!” He laughs again. “Who do you think she will believe, huh? Me, her most trusted man? Or some silly American girl? I could do it again, and it wouldn’t matter.”

O bites her lip, trying to look like she’s angry, frustrated, when inside she’s exploding with triumph.

“You won’t get away with it.”

He doesn’t hear the hard edge in her tone, or doesn’t care. He doesn’t think she can do anything to him.

 _You’re wrong_ , she thinks as he leaves her room whistling. _Oh, you’re so wrong._

She listens to the record to make sure it’s audible. The sound is muffled but the word _rape_ is distinct enough. O doesn’t wait; that very evening at dinner, she tells Elena that she has something she wants her to listen to.

Elena sees the MP3 recorder and says, “Oh, did you start your lessons?”

“No, not yet. It’s… it’s something else. You’ll want to listen to it, I assure you.”

Elena frowns, but nods in agreement and O presses the play button.

_You look beautiful today, cosita linda._

O sees Elena pale as the rest of the record plays out. When it’s over she’s silent, her mouth a thin line, and O is afraid that all she’s accomplished is to make things harder for herself. 

“When did it happen?” Elena finally asks.

“You mean–”

“I mean the _rape_.”

O flinches. “It was… in the first house I was kept in. I don’t remember it, I think he drugged me. But he showed me a video of it, just before I moved in here.”

Elena takes a breath in. “Go to your room. I’ll have someone bring you dinner.”

O doesn’t discuss the order and gets on her feet, her heart pounding. In her room she breaks into tears, from nerves, from fear and exhaustion. She falls into a restless sleep. 

The next morning, Elena has her summoned. O feels groggy with lack of any real rest, curiously detached from anything that could happen to her, and she forgets to be worried. 

She finds Elena in a pleasant living room, looking at a computer screen.

“Come here, girl,” she orders, and O complies.

The image is dark and keeps shifting, but after a while O realizes that it shows a bare-chested man, hanging from his wrists, his face bloody. 

“I wanted you to see it,” Elena says, emotionless. “This is what we call justice,” and it’s only at that moment that O recognizes the man.

“Lado,” she says. “What are you going–”

“See.”

A man splashes Lado with a clear fluid, and Lado twitches and cries out, “ _Elena, por favor!_ ”

O gasps. “You’re about to–”

“We are giving him a taste of the flames he will feel in Hell.”

Someone probably did something while O wasn’t looking because Lado suddenly bursts into flames with a scream.

O moves her hands to her face, to hide her eyes, but Elena says harshly, “Look!”

O watches helplessly. In her darkest moments, she has imagined all kinds of horrible things happening to Lado, but being faced with it she feels frozen with horror. Lado looks like a mere shadow behind the fire, but the screams, the _screams_. O knows she will hear them in her dreams for a very long time. 

The fire burns for what feels like hours. When the continuous screaming stops, Elena turns off the video. 

“Are you satisfied?” Elena asks, crossing her arms like to warm herself up.

“I…” O doesn’t have a word for what she’s feeling, but it’s not satisfaction. “I wanted him to pay.”

“And he did.” Elena’s expression softens. “Go to your room and get some rest.”

O does as she’s asked, feeling numb. She doesn’t know what it says about her when she goes to bed and gets the best sleep she’s had in a while.

\---

Chon progressively gets his strength back. It’s a slow, frustrating process that he measures by how far he can swim every day. Being sick cut him from the business and he has to rely on Ben for fresh news – things are going disgustingly well, flourishing under the partnership with Elena’s cartel. It pains Ben and him both to acknowledge it.

Ben and Chon keeps dancing around each other after that fateful night. Seems like every look, every touch has taken on a new meaning. They don’t talk about it, because what to say? Chon isn’t sure if it’s so much that he wants Ben, or that now that he knows it’s an option, and not a bad one, he can’t make himself completely close that door again.

Then one day Ben pushes him against the bay window, just like that, and grabs his mouth, bites his lips, with an aggressive passion that is a bit unusual for Ben, but not in a bad way. Third week of September and it’s still so hot, but it doesn’t feel uncomfortable to have Ben pressed against him, or have his hands slide under his t-shirt, feeling up the muscles of his stomach, his ribs, grazing a nipple.

“That okay?” Ben asks when he pulls out for breath.

“Not gonna break,” Chon says.

Ben snorts. “No, you’re not.”

It’s the Sunday of that same week that they decide that they have to tell O.

“Hi, guys!” O says when she appears.

It’s a source of wonder for Chon that she still manages to beam like that every time they see her. He isn’t much for physical affection, but it makes him want to hold her in his arms with a fierce desire.

Ben clears his throat. He looks so transparently nervous that O’s smile immediately fades.

“What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

Her eyes flicker from Ben to Chon, then back and forth several times like she wants to make sure they’re fine.

“No,” Chon says, rolling his eyes. “Ben’s being ridiculous.”

Ben glares at him. “Nothing’s wrong, O, don’t worry. We just have, ah, something to tell you.”

O’s eyebrows knit together and her nose scrunches up.

“For fuck’s sake, Ben,” Chon says. “Just get it out, don’t you see that you’re worrying her?”

“Well, why don’t _you_ tell her?”

“Guys, please!”

They stop fighting at once, and exchange a guilty look.

“Please just tell me what’s going on,” O says, her voice going gentle but pleading. “You’re both driving me crazy.”

“It’s really nothing. It’s just that a while ago…” Ben trails off.

“We had sex together,” Chon says bluntly, then raises an eyebrow at Ben, meaning _not that hard, is it_? “We were high, if that matters. But then we kissed a few times while sober.”

“Oh.” O’s mouth takes a perfect round form. “So you two… with each other. Okay.”

“It doesn’t change a thing about how we feel about you,” Ben says hurriedly. “Tell her, Chon.”

“Of course it doesn’t.”

“No? Good. That’s good.” She combs her hair using her fingers. “Sorry, I’m just a little surprised. I take it that if you’re telling me about it, it’s because you want it to be a thing, right?”

“Maybe? We’re still figuring it out,” Ben says. “We just didn’t want to hide it from you.”

She smiles, and seems to relax. “I can’t say I expected it, but… I just want both of you to do whatever makes you happy. Now,” her smile widens and there’s a familiar gleam in her eyes as she leans forward, “tell me exactly what happened. Don’t leave out any details.”

Chon smirks. Oh yeah, that’s their girl.

\---

It’s crazy how they get caught up in things. After O was taken, Ben thought about her all the time – there wasn’t much else he managed to think about. But as time goes by there’re other things to monopolize his attention – dealing with the Mexicans and the new customers they bring them, that weird thing with Chon – and sometimes he’ll suddenly realize that a good chunk of the day has passed without him thinking about her. The guilt, when that happens, is all consuming.

Summer ends, and fall starts, and it’s the end of November faster than Ben believed it would come. He’s been counting the days, so he knows that the one-year end mark is getting close and when Elena calls he’s ready for it.

Chon is out, and Ben is alone to talk with the Tijuana cartel’s terrible queen.

“Mr. Leonard,” she greets him; the tips of her perfectly manicured fingers rest against the line of her jaw.

“Mrs. Sanchez.”

His voice sounds deep and rough, betraying his anxiety. He doesn’t want that woman to see it, so he closes his fist and lets the bite of his fingernails into his palm anchor him.

“We are reaching the end of the promised year.”

She pauses, and he can’t figure what kind of reply she wants him to make.

“Yeah,” he says. “We did everything you said.”

“It took a few warning calls, as you’ll surely remember. I had your girlfriend. You’ll understand that I worry that it will happen again as soon as I give Ophelia back to you.”

“You promised–”

She raises a hand. “Please, let me finish. Our interactions have convinced me that you’re the reasonable one. Aren’t you?”

He has to take a deep breath to calm down. He _hates_ her, but he can’t let that show now – he wonders if that’s how Chon feels all the time.

“I am.”

“Then I’ll make myself perfectly clear. If I have any reason to doubt you, Ophelia will pay the price. I have become very fond of her in our time together, and I won’t take any pleasure in doing it, but I won’t hesitate to kill or maim her. Is it understood?”

“Yes.”

“Then we have a deal. Ophelia will be brought to your house in five days.”

“Thank you.”

Afterwards, he feels completely drained of energy, and it takes Chon coming back home for Ben to fully realize what’s going to happen.

“I got a call from Elena Sanchez,” he tells Chon.

Chon’s been about to take his sunglasses off, but at Ben’s declaration his hand stills. Ben can’t see his eyes when he asks, “What did she say?”

“O’s coming back, Chon.” Ben stands and walks to Chon, who still looks frozen, afraid to move. Ben gets closer and cups the back of his neck. “They’re bringing her next Sunday.”

Chon’s head bows, almost enough for their foreheads to touch.

“Fuck,” he says, fervently.

\---

Time passes strangely when you’re a captive. To O it’s like living in a time bubble, where time is still as air on a hot day. Nevertheless it’s a surprise when one day Elena tells her, “Next Sunday, I will have you brought to your boyfriends’ house. They respected their part of the bargain, so you’re free.”

“Oh.” O’s mind catches up with the meaning of Elena’s words. “It’s really been a year?”

“Yes.” Elena smiles, but it looks a little forced. “I will miss you, Ophelia. I’m aware of how strange this is.”

“No, I–” 

O’s eyes fall on her mutilated hand – the stump is healed, and O is used to it enough that she doesn’t flinch every time she sees it. Elena did this, or at least gave the order and O knows she doesn’t feel any remorse. Even then, she can’t deny she feels a little sad because they won’t ever see each other again. 

“I will miss you too.”

But no amount of Stockholm syndrome can quell her excitement at the idea of seeing Ben and Chon again. All week she feels like a little kid before Christmas. She looks at herself in the mirror to catch the differences, the things that will maybe make Ben and Chon pause. She’s paler, for one, from being locked up inside all year. Her cheekbones are maybe more prominent. She wonders if there’s something about her eyes that betrays how different she feels from the carefree girl from a year ago, but she can’t really tell.

In the end, she’s standing in front of Ben and Chon’s house, her hand raised to knock on the door. She doesn’t have the time.

“O. You’re here.” 

It’s Ben, looking at her like he can’t believe his eyes. Chon is right behind him, of course.

She kisses Ben first, as he’s closer. His smell, his taste, the scratch of his beard – there’s so much that a video couldn’t bring to life. Then she kisses Chon and he’s so responsive, hungry, grabbing her hair a little roughly.

Then she takes them both by the neck to draw them close and breathe them in. Home, finally.


End file.
